Trickery of Kentaro Cokichi
It was a sunny day. Kentaro Cokichi walked across the grass covered plains with great relief. Painting was banished from Menal, which meant that evil could not grow too strong, and balance could be eternal. Of course, Kindred could not share the same joy, he was too busy preventing spacetime from falling apart. Kentaro did not talk however. He had no reason to. No one could understand him, not even the worms which had recently evolved. Sometimes he felt lonely. Despite being happy, deep down he felt deep down like he had no purpose: everything was running smoothly without him. With Painting gone for the past several billion years, he didn't feel like he had any point. He sat on a rock to think, and a voice went in his head, the first words ever spoken. All other communication was telepathically sending ideas, and no one had any need to talk, and nobody there thought in words. And so the first momentus words ever communicated happened. "Life seems to be getting you down, isn't it?" The voice in his head said. It was a deep voice, but not scary. Professional, to the point, knowledgable. But Kentaro knew this would never have happened naturally. Something must have been behind this. "Who said that?!" Kentaro yelled in his mind, standing up from the rock and drawing his sword. He knew that talking would once again prove futile. Whatever was doing this was a psychic being. A Spirit of the Blade perhaps? He didn't know. "Who I am is of no concern." The voice responded. "Just think of me as a friend." "What do you want?" Kentaro said in his mind. "I seek to simultaneasly purge you of your sadness and rebalance the alignments." The voice said. A sly smile spread across Pain ting's face. He was a spirit right now, and was toying with Kentaro's head. He loved it. "The alignments are perfectly balanced already." Kentaro stated. "There's no need." "Ah, but there is." Painting returned. "Soon good will have the upper hand." "But how?" Kentaro demanded. He still didn't know for sure and was trying to figure it out. It couldn't be Painting, he was exiled. "The worms are growing in power." Painting explained. "They will reach conscious thought soon. And when they do, they'll side with good. This will upset the balance, especially since the worms will be very powerful. Also concider that Painting's removal leaves evil with practically nothing when that happens." "So what are you suggesting?" Kentaro inquisited. He looked over at the Spirits of the Blade. Swirling around the Blade of Kindred, it couldn't be any of them. "I'm suggesting that Kindred must be removed from the equation." Painting answered. "WHAT?!" Kentaro roared in his head. That means it couldn't be Kindred. And the worms had no psychics. While Kentaro knew that a previous multiverse had existed, that it was destroyed and he had managed to escape it by hiding in the AEther, he didn't remember anything about the previous multiverse's laws, origins, life forms or the destruction itself. He came to the conclusion that whatever this was must have also survived the obliteration of existence. "Wiping out the worms will lower your power greatly, and then the Spirits of the Blade will ensure you meet the same fate as Painting." The voice replied. "It will also take much longer. Annihilating Kindred will be quick and easy. And if that is accomplished, the Spirits of the Blade will die with him. No power of good will be able to hinder our balancing with all their 'Everyone must be righteous!' crap. And then you'll be the most powerful being left, with no evil possible force ever able to stand up to you." Kentaro could now easily assume that this force was certainly not good, and probably not evil. Neutral was the only alignment it could prlobably be. "Just one question." Kentaro spoke in his mind. "Who in Kindred's name are you?" "I am the voice of your inner consciousness." Painting conceded. "And nothing more." Painting had done enough, and left Kentaro's mind. Kentaro levitated into the air and flew forward a fast as he could towards Kindred, readying his sword. Painting nearly died of laughter. "I can't believe he actually fell for it! What an idiot." He still had no means of entering Menal, but didn't need to. He had calculated all that would ever happen, and he would have no need to return again.